


Swimmingly

by Farla



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Flarp, Gen, Pre-Canon, Scourge Sisters, btp, rbtf
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-28
Updated: 2011-12-28
Packaged: 2017-10-28 07:47:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/305544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Farla/pseuds/Farla
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A game of Flarp where no one drowns.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Swimmingly

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cosmogyral](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cosmogyral/gifts).



Terezi fans out the character sheets like they're a hand of cards. "Pick one."

"All of them!" Vriska says instantly. She's papped in the face by the sheets. "What! If we wanna take out the bad guys we should get them all and the best way to do that is to do them all at once!" She smacks her fist into her palm. "Bam! Justice!"

Terezi rolls her eyes and waves the sheets threateningly. "These are higher level players than we've gone after before. There's a time to push your luck and a time for caution."

"We can take them! Come ooooon, we're unbeatable! Redglare and Mindfang, scourge of Flarp players. They'll tremble in fear of us once they know what they're up against!"

"If we get a reputation, more people will refuse to play against us. That means we'll be leveling slower and there won't be any stable supply of evildoers for your lusus." Vriska sighs dramatically and flops down on the floor. Terezi gives her a sly look. "If you can't decide, go with the green."

"Fiiiiiiine," Vriska whines, sitting up again and crossing her legs under her. The cards are a high yellow, a green, orange-red, and a blue that's too close to her own for comfort. She grabs for the green and flips it to see a picture of a rangy, muscular boy. "So, Legislacerator , what's his crime?"

"Cannibalism." Vriska gives a start. "Seems like eating culled wigglers just isn't good enough for him. He's been stalking kids his age or even older and butchering them. He's only fooling around with FLARP as a hobby, the killings he does with his lusus." Terezi gives a grin full of fangs. "He's used to relying on the pouncebeast for the killings, it's the one doing the lion's share of the work. Without it he won't be so dangerous. The hard part will be distracting the clouder."

"What makes you so sure he won't have his lusus? He sounds like a cheater."

Terezi keeps grinning. "Remember how you kept complaining about how we never do any water-based games?"

Vriska tackles her in a hug. "Yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes!"

"It's not on the ocean, it's just a lake, and it won't be -"

"I get distraction duty then?"

"There's no one better than the Marquise," Terezi says.

-

It's not a very complex campaign. This is supposed to be an informal tussle, just the four of them, and neither clouder is experienced in even nominally water-related campaigns. It's not a safe road to go down in this game for people who don't have gills.

Things are simple - a wrecked ship, half-beached on the shore and half underwater in the lake, some enemies to scattered all over to deal with as the players try to make their way through the maze of wrecked hallways. It's supposed to be a matter of running around the upper levels with the boat mostly there for the creepy atmosphere, but evidently Terezi's noose is tightening fast and his clouder's getting mad.

Although Vriska would like to believe part of that's her own natural talent in the area.

Another lucky roll clears out this corridor's enemies, even though they should have been too tough for her to get by so quickly.

IR: you can't rely on luck 4ever!!  
AG: w8tch me!!!!!!!!

Vriska is the _best_ at this. Terezi may be good at planning and she may be good at predicting what people are going to do and she may be good at tricking people into doing what she wants, but no one, _no one_ , is better at getting and monopolizing attention than Vriska is.

A bit more of this and the clouder will be within reach, so busy being angry at the mess Vriska's awesome dice have made of her encounters that she doesn't notice Vriska just happens to have wandered toward her a little too close for safety. And Terezi says Vriska can't think ahead.

But she's barely gone four steps before a trio of new monsters appears to replace the ones she just dropped. The clouder is expecting her to keep attacking them. She'll spam the monsters and keep Vriska stuck here, betting that eventually the odds will go in her favor.

Well, playing the game on other people's terms is for nerds, losers and boys anyway. Time to abscond to a better location.

Vriska finds her retreat cut off by another pair. That's really cheating, there's a limit on how many a clouder can spawn per area. Vriska's always thought it was a dumb rule, rewarding cowardice and absconders. She ignores the cackling over Trollian. The clouder thinks Vriska is cornered. There's wall to her left, monsters in front and behind, and a submerged staircase on her right. She strikes a triumphant pose for the monsters and her watching clouder opponent, then dives in.

Trollian squawks with shock.

She can't swim, of course. She's not a sea troll. But she's strong and she can hold her breath, and there's plenty of handholds on the rusting and deformed wall, and -

Yes. There's a break in the ceiling further on, a way out. She crawls up the wall, grabs hold of the broken edge of the metal, and pushes her head up into the air. When the water pulls away from her eyes it feels like it takes a layer of flesh with it. She ignores the pain, scanning the blurry room for movement as she gulps air in desperate, heaving gasps.

She almost climbs out there. The heavy water feels like it's clutching her, tangling and restraining her limbs. But clouders have a terrain map and this hole will be on it. She wants out but she wants to win more, so after a few seconds she goes back under. She can do this. She's going to be more than a regular landdweller, she's going to go up against sea trolls one day and she'll sail rings around them and steal all their treasure out from under their purple finned noses. Spinneret Mindfang isn't afraid of a little water just because she can't breathe in it and it holds her back so she can barely even move.

The water stings her eyes even worse going back under, and it feels like the harder she tries to move the slower she goes. Her lungs burn. But there's another staircase and she crawls out, trying not to gasp too loudly and pawing at her throbbing eyes to try to clear them. The clouder's lost track of her. Now's the time to turn the tables.

-

GC: VR1SK4 1 GOT H1M >:]  
GC: T1M3 TO GO B3FOR3 H1S CLOUD3R F1GUR3S 1T OUT FOR SUR3 AND GOES AFTER YOU  
AG: Try to keep up with me, Ms. Legislacer8or ! I'm the one closing in on her now! :::;D  
GC: GR34T, TH3N 1T'LL B3 34SY TO G3T OUT CL34NLY  
AG: 8ut I've almost got her!  
GC: G3TT1NG H3R 1S PO1NTL3SS  
GC: SH3'S NOT TH3 T4RG3T, R3M3MB3R?  
AG: ….....  
GC: VR1SK4 >:[  
AG: 8re you reeeeeeeeaaaaaaaally sure?  
AG: May8e she was in cahoots!  
AG: May8e she's just as 8ad!!!!!!!!  
GC: 4R3 YOU DOUBT1NG TH3 1LLUSTR1OUS R3DGL4R3'S 1NV3ST1G4T1V3 SK1LLS?  
GC: SUGG3ST1NG 1 WOULD 4LLOW CR1M1N4LS TO GO FR33?  
AG: Maaaaaaaay8e. Are you totally eight hundred percent sure? After all, we can't risk letting a criminal go free! She'd warn everyone a8out us!  
GC: FOR YOUR 1NFORM4T1ON Y3S 1 4M  
GC: 1T WOULD B3 34S13R TO G3T TH3M BOTH NOW 1F TH3Y W3R3 BOTH CR1M1N4LS  
GC: BUT TH3Y ONLY M3T R3C3NTLY 4ND ONLY FOR G4M3S  
GC: B3S1D3S H3 1S L1K3 4 F3R4L TROLL H3 WOULDN'T SH4R3 W1TH 4NOTH3R TROLL  
GC: TH3R3 1S JUST NO W4Y SH3 COULD B3 1NVOLV3D  
AG: Fiiiiiiiine ::::P

The clouder hasn't noticed her yet. If she drops in now, the troll might be mad enough to attack her directly, especially if Vriska gloats about what just happened to her partner. That'd still be almost an unprovoked attack. And that'd make the clouder a criminal.

She pockets her dice and creeps away instead.

-

Terezi is smudged with her own teal but the boy's body is all in one piece, if a bit bruised around the neck. Vriska frets anyway. "He's not even that big," she complains.

"You don't need to give her a big meal right now, just enough to hold her until the multiplayer game in a few days," Terezi says. "You're soaked. What happened? Did you fall into the water?"

"I didn't fall," Vriska says proudly. "I _jumped_." She spins in a circle, avoiding Terezi's look. "I had to ditch my clouder, didn't I? It wasn't even that hard to do! I bet-"

"I bet if she'd been a sea troll she'd have jumped right in after you."

"And I'd have won!" Vriska shouts. "You were worried about this because they were more experienced players than before, but we did great! Everything went off perfectly! So come on, why shouldn't we go after those snobs!"

"Things are different when it's purplebloods," Terezi says.

"But what if we-"

"Go diving to some ancient wreck to dredge up dead people's weapons? No ocean and no purplebloods. Just leave them to play their own games, nothing good comes from getting involved with sea dwellers."

"Nothing good would come to them if they messed with me."

"You'd take them all down with you," Terezi agrees easily. "But then who'd help me get all the rest of the criminals? And you'll swim before we run out of lawbreakers here. You wouldn't leave your poor sister to do all the work herself, would you?"

"Never! You'd be lost without me." She hefts the boy over her shoulders. "Let's get going, I want to feed her before it gets late."


End file.
